St. Luke in the Fields -- Hudson Street

photo by Alice Lum

In July 1821 The Christian Journal and Literary Register reported “On Monday, June 4^th, the corner stone of a new building, to be styled St. Luke’s Church, was laid in Hudson-street, in this city…The part of the city in which the proposed church is building, including the village of Greenwich, and its vicinity, has long been regarded as very suitable for the formation of a new parish.  An attempt to this effect was made by a few Episcopal families last fall.”

The families the article referred to had met in the house of Mrs. Catherine Ritter who lived on the corner of West 4^th Street and Little Jones Street.  On November 6, 1820 the parish was organized.  Clement C. Moore, whose family estate Chelsea sat further north, was named senior warden.

Since then, said The Christian Journal, “A convenient room for the holding of divine service was procured.  The congregation has greatly increased; and, by the divine blessing on the zeal and activity of its leading members, aided by the charitable succours of their brethren throughout the city, there is every prospect that, for numbers and character, St. Luke’s will hold a most respectable rank among the parishes of the city.”  The journal went on to print the inscription on the cornerstone, which included “John Heath, Architect.”  Heath paid for the cornerstone himself.

While the small congregation worshiped in the little school house on Amos Street (later renamed West 10^th), the plot for the permanent structure was purchased from Trinity Church.  Trinity owned a large swath of land in the area, familiarly called the Trinity Farm and given to the church by Queen Anne in 1714. 

The spot on Hudson Street was bucolic.  The summer estates of New York’s aristocracy engulfed much of the surrounding land—like the 300-acre estate of Sir Peter Warren, now owned by Abraham van Nest; and the famous Richmond Hill just to the south, formerly owned by Aaron Burr.  There were only four structures within eye-shot of the church site, one of which was the old State Prison.  To the south, between the site and Canal Street, there was just one building—the Tyler Tavern.   The only means of public conveyance from New York City was a stage that made two runs a day.

The rural setting would earn the church the familiar name the Church of St. Luke in the Fields, a moniker still used today.

Years later the Rev. Dr. A. W. Jenks, professor at the General Theological Seminary, would remember “Several of the leading men of St. Luke’s first urged that New Yorkers should build their Winter homes there.  Before that Greenwich Village had been a Summer colony.”  Their urgings were aided by calamity.  In 1822, as construction on the chapel was nearing completion, a horrendous yellow fever epidemic took hold in the city.  New Yorkers who could afford to do so abandoned the city for the fresh air and open countryside of Greenwich Village.  The hamlet experienced a building boom as houses sprung up on the dirt streets.

In 1860 Valentine's Manual of New York published a romanticized version of the early setting - copyright expired

John Heath’s completed structure cost $7,500 according to church records—about $154,000 today.  Built of brick, it reflected the prim Federal style of a country church.  The entrance was through a large, square bell tower topped by a wooden parapet.  Tall, round-arched openings flooded the interior with light.

In 1850 the Rev. Isaac Henry Tuttle became rector, a position he would hold for decades.  In its 30 years of existence, the congregation saw rapid change in the neighborhood.  Along with the rise in population came poverty and other social ills.  The Archives of the General Convention of the Episcopal Church recalled decades later that Tuttle was faced with a parish “changing by removals, decreasing in income, and crowded by the advent of a foreign-born population.”  It was Tuttle who initiated many of the social programs for which St. Luke’s was best known.  “His sympathy with those whose circumstances had changed for the worse led to the institution of St. Luke’s Home for Indigent Christian Females.”

On July 10, 1863, just five days before his 84^th birthday, Clement Clarke Moore died in his summer home in Newport.  His body was returned to New York during a time of tremendous upheaval.  In March a strict federal draft law was enacted whereby every male citizen between 20 and 35 was subject to military duty.  A lottery was established to select the draftees; but those who could afford the $300 waiver fee could avoid conscription. 

On the day after Moore’s death the first lottery was held.  Two days later, when the working classes realized the inequity of the system, riots broke out.  For five days no one was safe on the streets of New York as mobs murdered civilians and torched homes and businesses.  Moore’s casket arrived in the city and was secretly moved through the streets to the churchyard behind St. Luke in the Field where it was quietly buried.

St. Luke in the Field, like all churches and chapels, would see numerous weddings and funerals throughout the years.  Perhaps none was so poignant as that of Francis J. Lyon and Mary Imogene Greene.  On Thursday, October 26, 1865, just a few months after the end of the Civil War, the happy couple was married in the church by Rev. Tuttle.  The newlyweds boarded the steamer St. John for their honeymoon excursion.

Three days later, at 7:00 on a Sunday morning, the vessel’s boiler exploded.  Both Francis and Mary were scalded to death.  At noon on Tuesday, October 31 and just five days after their wedding here, their coffins were carried into the church.  The New York Times reported “the coverings being removed, the bodies were seen habited in their bridal attire.”  The church was crowded with mourners, and the newspaper said “The services were performed in a very impressive manner, by Rev. J. H. Tuttle the same clergyman who had officiated at the marriage ceremony.”

In the 1880s the grand society churches populated by Manhattan’s wealthy closed for the summer season.  Their congregants were off to Newport and other summer resorts and it was during these three months that reparations and redecoration to the church structures were done.  More humble parishes like St. Luke in the Field remained open.  So during the summer of 1883 services were held in the chapel while the main sanctuary got a make-over.  On September 16 that year The Times reported that services in the main church would resume that day; saying St. Luke in the Field “has been thoroughly redecorated and repaired, and now presents a most attractive appearance.”  The newspaper added “St. Luke’s was formerly known as the Greenwich Village Church, and as it stands in the midst of its quiet churchyard, attracts much attention from those passing by.”

By now St. Luke’s congregation numbered about 400.  The plain, Federal-style architecture was out of date and unappreciated by many.  A writer for The New York Times in 1886 offhandedly remarked “As all old residents of the city know, the old church building, attractive in its ugliness, stands in Hudson-street, just where Grove-street juts into that thoroughfare.”  In January that year its attractive ugliness nearly came to an end.

Around 7:15 on the evening of January 6, 1886 passersby noticed wisps of smoke rising from the roof.  Within five minutes steam fire engines clattered up to the church.  “When the main door of the building was opened a volume of thick smoke drove the firemen back, but not before they had seen furious flames in the rear of the building.  The chancel was converted into a blazing furnace, and before the firemen could enter the building the handsome organ was in ruins,” reported The New York Times.

While some firefighters rushed to remove valuable items to the street; others streamed water into the building.  Unfortunately, they inadvertently shot directly through two valuable stained glass windows—valued at $500 each at the time.  When the fire was extinguished, the organ was a total loss and the chancel roof was “burned to charcoal.”  The loss was estimated at around $15,000; nearly $400,000 in today’s dollars.

The fire was one of several factors leading to the decision to move the congregation north.  On December 18, 1888 many New Yorkers were shocked and dismayed to read in The Times “One of the old landmarks and an exceedingly old and revered place of worship, St. Luke’s Protestant Episcopal Church, in Hudson-street, between Barrow and Christopher streets, will not only be soon leveled to the ground, but all the memories connected with its site will be destroyed by the removal of the dead from the ancient burying ground.”

Following the fire St. Luke's got a few Victorian enhancements like the gingerbread side porches and the entrance hood -- from the collection of the New York Public Library

The congregation had already laid plans to erect a new church at 141^st Street and Convent Avenue.  Now, on December 17, the pew holders met and decided to transfer all the 500 or so bodies in the churchyard to other cemeteries “as promptly as possible.”  This included, of course, the grave of Clement Clarke Moore.

Trinity Church had repurchased the land on which St. Luke’s and its associated buildings and churchyard sat.  It now proposed to build a $1.5 million complex including “a great church.”  The New York Times projected “They will form, in all probability, one of the most complete groups of buildings for church purposes in the world.”

Four years later the new St. Luke’s Church uptown was completed and on November 27, 1892 the 83 year old Rev. Tuttle issued his last sermon from the old building.  For some reason Trinity’s grand plans died away and the venerable building survived.  It was now “St. Luke’s Chapel, Trinity Parish.”

Further downtown sat another Trinity chapel, that of St. John’s.  The astonishingly beautiful Georgian structure once stood on St. John’s Park, one of the most elegant residential neighborhood of the early 19^th century.  Designed by John McComb and completed in 1807, it was now surrounded by commerce and freight depots.

Wurts Bros. captured the simple, stenciled ceilings and exquisite stained glass around 1910 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWU3P5GC&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWU3P5GC&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631&PN=3

In 1909 Trinity decided to close St. John’s Chapel and combine its congregation with St. Luke’s.  The move would allow Trinity Church to demolish the architectural jewel.  It prompted a debate that lasted for several years.  One of the considerations brought up by concerned citizens nationwide was the architectural value of either structure.  St. Luke in the Fields, often the brunt of criticism, was most often on the losing end.  On June 1, 1914 John Handforth fired off an impassioned letter to the New-York Tribune.  In it he proposed that, if one building had to go, “then let the vestry close St. Luke’s Chapel, the most hideous specimen of ecclesiastical architecture in the city, and transfer the work to St. John’s Chapel.” 

The magnificent St. John’s Chapel was demolished in 1918.  St. Luke’s not only inherited its congregation, but a most extraordinary tradition.  In 1827, five years after St. Luke’s Church was completed, a wealthy recluse named John Leake was found dead before his fireplace in Park Row.  Leake had no relatives to inherit his fortune and he instructed that 1,000 pounds “be laid out in the annual income in sixpenny loaves of wheaten bread and distributed every Sabbath morning after divine service to such poor as shall appear most deserving.”

photo from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWU3P5GC&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631#/SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYWU3P5GC&SMLS=1&RW=1366&RH=631&PN=3

Every Sunday thereafter, until 1860, Trinity Church distributed 67 loaves of bread from the church steps.  Then the practice was transferred to St. John’s (which moved the distribution to Saturday to make the charity less conspicuous).  Now the Leake Dole, reportedly the oldest bread line in the world, was carried on by St. Luke in the Fields.  The Evening World reported on February 10, 1919 “At 9 o’clock every Saturday morning the sixty-seven loaves are piled on a little table in the chapel, and children who are known to be members of deserving families call for them.”

The newspaper added “This weekly dole, which keeps alive the memory of a lonely old man, has come as a God-send to more than one family that might otherwise have been breadless.”

The changes in the Greenwich Village neighborhood that St. Luke’s parishioners experienced throughout the 19^th century continued through the 20^th.  By 1976, when St. Luke’s once again became an independent church, the area around the structure was the center of New York’s gay culture.  The parish embraced its new members and was catastrophically impacted by the AIDS epidemic.

In 1981 a fire even worse than the 1883 blaze consumed St. Luke’s.  For many there was no hope of rebuilding the gutted and blackened shell.  But a determined Rev. Ledlie I. Laughlin Jr. was resolute.  The architectural firm Hardy Holzman Pfeiffer Associates oversaw the reconstruction and in 1985 the reborn church was reconsecrated.

photo by Alice Lum

No longer considered “ugly” or “hideous,” John Heath’s charming country church survives after nearly two centuries.  The former churchyard is a welcoming garden, open to the public daily.  St. Luke in the Fields, with its contemporary houses lining the rest of the block, forms a unique picture of live in rural Greenwich Village.

The 1825 James N. Wells House -- 487 Hudson Street

The house is two bays wider than its neighbors -- photo by Alice Lum

In 1714, Queen Anne bestowed on Trinity Church a vast section of land stretching along the Hudson River from Duane Street to what would become Christopher Street to the north in the Village of Greenwich.  The large tract of land became familiarly known as the “Trinity Farm” or the “Church Farm.”

The sleepy hamlet would see a tremendous building boom as a result of the 1822 yellow fever epidemic that caused New York City residents to flee northward to the country.  Yet, two years earlier, an ambitious development project on the Trinity Church land was already under consideration.

Mrs. Catherine Ritter lived at the corner of West 4^th Street and Little Jones Street.  A meeting was held in her house in 1820 with the goal in mind to see an Episcopalian chapel erected in the village.  On November 6 of that year, the parish of St. Luke’s was organized.  Clement C. Moore, whose family estate Chelsea sat north of Greenwich Village, was named senior warden.

The chosen site for the chapel sat mid-block on the west side of Hudson Street between Christopher and Barrow Streets.  The rural setting resulted in its being popularly called “St. Luke’s in the Fields,” a moniker that survives today.  Construction on St. Luke’s Chapel began in 1821 and was completed a year later.  The structure was erected by James N. Wells, who would later nearly single-handedly develop Moore’s Chelsea into a vibrant community. 

St. Luke's, a chapel of Trinity Church, was completed in 1822 -- photo by Alice Lum

With the chapel completed, attention was focused on developing the rest of the church-owned block.  Wells would be responsible for encircling the block with Federal-style rowhouses which shielded from public view the graveyard and gardens of the chapel.  Among the first four homes to be built was 487 Hudson Street which flanked the chapel to the north and would become home to James N. Wells, himself.  Construction was completed in 1825 and Wells’s home would be the largest on the block—a full 36 feet wide.  Two-and-a-half stories high, it featured the expected dormers sitting above the eave line, and a handsome entrance with Ionic columns, sidelights and transom.

The handsome entrance survives intact.  Flemish bond brickwork adds to the charm and the window to the right of the door retains its paneled lintel. --photo by Alice Lum

Wells lived in the spacious home until 1833 when he moved to No. 183 Ninth Avenue in Chelsea.  Within the decade the Hudson Street house would become home to the family of Captain William Newcomb.  Here, on the afternoon of Saturday, December 21, 1844, Newcomb’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth, died.  Her funeral was held in the parlor at 3:30 on Christmas Eve.

Within two years the large home was being operated as a boarding house.  An advertisement in the New-York Daily Tribune on February 5, 1846 offered, “Furnished rooms with board to be obtained at No. 487 Hudson-st.  References exchanged.”  It was apparently at this time that Francis Brett Harte’s family lived here, having arrived from Albany in 1845.  Brett Harte would grow up to become one of Americans most beloved writers.

In 1851, the church took over the house as St. Luke’s Home for Indigent Christian Females.  The institution was incorporated on January 12, 1854, and was supported mainly by private donations.   In 1855, the Journal of the Proceedings of the Annual Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church complained about tepid donations.

In 1857 the house had been raised to a full three floors--from the collection of the New York Public Library

St. Luke’s Home for Indigent Females, though in more vigorous operation, and unable to meet the numerous applicants for admission, has not received the wide support which an indispensable church institution demands.  As this is not a parochial institution, (only one of its inmates being from St. Luke’s Parish) but general both in its organization and in its admissions from the city parishes at large, its humane benefits will, we trust, enlist the more general interest and support of the Church.

On January 14, 1864, the Home received a windfall when New York City Board of Councilmen voted to donate $1,000 (a generous $25,500 in today’s terms).  On Christmas Eve 1867 there were 31 “inmates” in the home.  That year temperance advocate J. B. Swann donated the women’s Christmas dinner.  “Turkeys and geese are to be the substantials,” reported the New-York Tribune.  However, the newspaper noted that Christmas was an understated holiday—its focus being more religious than festive.  “Beyond this nothing is to be done, as in this Institution ‘Thanksgiving’ is the principal day.”

By 1870, the building had been enlarged to the rear.  That year the Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities described it, saying, “The building…is thirty-six feet front by forty-feet deep, and three stories high, with an extension eighteen by thirty-six feet.  It is in good repair and well furnished, and adapted to its present use.”

By now, there were 34 women living here.  The Committee noted “They are admitted for life, and none are removed except upon the request of relatives or friends desirous of providing for their support.”

The elderly women were comfortable, but clearly not pampered.  “The house is plainly but comfortably furnished, the table is well supplied, and proper medical attention is given to the sick and the infirm.”

In 1871, a confusing legal issue arose when John Alstyne died.  In his will he bequeathed $25,000 to “The Old Ladies’ Home.”  The problem was that no institution went by that name.  When The Home for Aged and Indigent Females laid claim to the hefty legacy, St. Luke’s Home countered with a law suit.  It took Judge Spencer several months of consideration to decide that it was St. Luke’s Home that Alstyne had in mind.

The windfall would help in the construction of the new St. Luke’s Home for Indigent Christian Females on Madison Avenue and 89^th Street the following year.  In 1872, Wood’s Illustrated Hand-book to New York and Environs remarked on the coming move.  “It is at present on Hudson street, and its doors are open to persons of respectability in reduced circumstances, and who are members of the Episcopal Church.  The new building just ready for occupation…is four stories high.  The style is mediaeval Gothic, with Mansard roof and three towers.”

The house on Hudson Street was immediately taken over by a new institution.  The Home for Old Men and Aged Couples was incorporated in 1872.  The New York Times explained, “While St. Luke’s afforded a refuge for aged Christian women, there was no place under church influences open to receive old men, or where an aged couple could pass their declining years together.  It was also desired to extend a home to those who had once been prosperous, and while so unfortunate as to lose their property still retained their good names.”

Although there was a considerable admission fee of $250, the elderly men and aged married couples lived cost-free after that.  Bishop Horatio Potter described the home in flowery Victorian prose:

The very name of such a home calls up before the mind an image of touching interest.  We think of the life within that Christian Home—serene, patient, cheerful—of the aged men rescued from lonely want and suffering, and brought into a family where needed comforts are secured to them, where love reigns, and where, by kindly looks and words they can contribute to each other’s enjoyment.  We think of the aged couples saved from the bitterness of separation—saved from the daily dread of a to-morrow, harder to bear than the cold and hunger of to-day; we think of these aged couples established in a Christian home, provided with simple comforts, themselves overflowing with gratitude to God and to their early friends for the unimagined blessings vouchsafed to them, and never weary of exchanging with other inmates as favored as themselves the touching story of former trials and present mercies.

The Home flourished and in 1872 the New York City Mission and Tract Society noted, “The House now numbers among its inmates several who have been successful in the learned professions, and who have had high standing in mercantile life in this city.”  The report added “Here their remaining days can be passed in comfort, and free from anxiety as to whence their daily bread will come.  Only those who are too old to take care of themselves, and who have no one friend from whom they can claim support, are admitted.”

At some point an architecturally-questionable hood was installed over the entrance -- photograph by Wurts Bros. from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW57K3LP&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

On December 1, 1887, the Home held its 15^th annual reception.  By now there were 31 elderly persons living in the house.  “The old people received their friends in the parlors,” reported The New York Times.  “Other rooms were fitted up with tables upon which were spread for sale fancy work of all descriptions, contributed by Miss Byson, Mrs. Kane, Mrs. O’Connor, and Mrs. Williams.  The proceeds are to go to the home.”

In 1892, King’s Handbook of New York City was still a bit surprised that the home allowed inmates of both sexes.  “The home is at 487 Hudson Street, and here aged married couples are allowed to dwell comfortably together during their closing years.”  By now the number of residents had risen to 36.

Like its predecessor, The Home for Old Men and Aged Couples eventually moved further uptown.  In 1896 it acquired land on 112^th Street and Amsterdam Avenue and completed a new building the following year.

Little has changed to No. 487 Hudson Street since Berenice Abbott took this photograph on June 13, 1936 -- from the collection of the Museum of the City of New York http://collections.mcny.org/C.aspx?VP3=SearchResult_VPage&VBID=24UAYW57K95U&SMLS=1&RW=1280&RH=915

The house remained little changed throughout the 20^th century.  By the 1960s it served as St. Luke’s Parish House, and then as St. Luke’s School.  In describing it and its surviving neighbors, the Landmarks Preservation Commission said, “These houses provide us with some of the finest examples of Federal architecture remaining in the city, and are among the few of the period for which a builder is definitely known.”